


Sing Me To Sleep

by esljackzimmermann (QuietLittleVoices)



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Anxiety, Character Study, Hospitalization, M/M, Medicinal Drug Use, Overdosing, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-24
Updated: 2015-03-24
Packaged: 2018-03-19 10:53:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3607455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuietLittleVoices/pseuds/esljackzimmermann
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You were never proud of yourself.<br/>It starts before you ever even got the pills. It starts before you were in juniors, before you met Kent, before the alcohol and the parties. It starts the first time you put on skates and he smiles at you like the whole world's at your feet (because it is) and you want to keep him smiling like that forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sing Me To Sleep

It’s not that you didn’t think he loved you, and it’s not that you didn’t know he was proud of you no matter what - it’s that he expected you to grow up to be him and you were never proud of yourself.

It starts before you ever even got the pills. It starts before you were in juniors, before you met Kent, before the alcohol and the parties. It starts the first time you put on skates and he smiles at you like the whole world's at your feet (because it is) and you want to keep him smiling like that forever.

One thing you've learnt in your almost quarter century on Earth is that the universe wasn't created for consistency. The first time the smile falls is when you miss a shot on open net in Atom level hockey. You don't remember why you missed, but that doesn't matter - the only thing that matters is that the puck hit the post and went spinning into the boards and you stood there feeling for the first time like the ice under you was slippery, like you were going to fall if you didn't pay attention. That was what starteld you the most - the ice had always felt as natural to you as solid ground, maybe more natural.

You remember that the car ride home after that game was tense and silent.

"I'm sorry," you tell him quietly, staring down at your hands clasped loosely in your lap.

"There's nothing to apologize for," he responds, but the muscle in his jaw twitch and his hands tighten on the steering wheel, "you played a good game. You did your best." You can hear his official press-conference voice coming out under the words and you know that you're no longer speaking to your father, the man who carried you on his shoulders to and from outdoor rinks in the middle of December - you're talking to Bad Bob Zimmermann, the man who's got a smile for the nation and a wrist shot for the Habs.

 

When you meet Kent it's like everything falls into place. He takes up the empty space in your life where all the friends you never had time for should have been - he understands the time that hockey takes up, and sure there were others that understood but the differences is that he's there with you. Hockey might not be as all-or-nothing to him as it is to you, but to be in a pro sport it has to take over your life in no small portion.

You go to your first party trailing in his wake and get drunk for the first time in a McGill frat house. You pass out in their living room and wake up with a sore neck but all you remember is the feeling of euphoria that came with the alcohol. For the first time in your entire life, you were free from the expectations of your father, the media, and all of Canada. You felt like Atlas letting the sky off your shoulders and for a moment you swore that you could fly.

 

Kent helped you fly. Helped you find out who you were as Jack Zimmermann, teenager, not Jack Zimmermann, son of Bad Bob, hockey prodigy.

 

He only kisses you when you're both drunk and pretends not to remember it in the morning, so you pretend, too. It's not long before you're not pretending.

 

You stop the alcohol before it becomes a problem and get help. Help comes in a bottle and a stuffy room with two windows, a fake plant, and a fake leather couch. At first it makes you dizzy and disoriented - you find yourself standing in place for five, ten, fifteen minutes just staring into space. When Kent asks what's going on and you tell him, he looks at you with sad eyes and just pats you on the back without saying anything and for the first time you feel like you've let him down.

 

One pill stops working.

 

Two pills stop working.

 

Three pills stop working.

 

Four, five, you shake the bottle into your shaking hand. Your mind spins. All you can hear is their disappointed voices, a chorus of 'you aren't good enough'.

 

Six. Seven. The bottle tumbles out of your fingers and rolls along the floor before hitting the edge of the bathtub with a hollow click. Your knees hit the floor with a thud and you lower yourself to the ground. Every bristle on the bathmat pressing against your cheek - you thought it was ugly and uncomfortable when your mother bought it but you could easily fall asleep on it now.

 

When you wake up in the hospital, the first thing you see is your father's disappointed face and you want to disappear. Your mother is crying so you focus on her. She rushes to grab your hand over the edge of the bed, her fingers brushing against the hospital bracelet cutting into the skin of your wrist. When you apologize, voice scratchy and rough, she smooths your hair and pressing a kiss to your temple before resting her forehead against the side of your head.

"Don't apologize, baby," she murmurs. "I'm sorry. I should have been there. I should have been there. I should have -" her words end on a choked sob as your eyes find your father again. He isn't looking at you. You aren't surprised.

 

Rehab helps until the draft and you watch Kent and his million-dollar smile walk across the stage as first pick. You're happy for him, of course you are, but you can't help thinking about the look of disappointment in his eyes when you told him you were on medication. It was like he knew, all along, where you were going to end up.

The camera gives him a close up and he looks right into the lense. For a moment, you feel as if he's looking at you and you feel a lump form in your throat. Then the camera angle changes and you turn the TV off. You'll read about the rest of the draft picks in the morning.

 

You pick Samwell because it seems quiet. The entire pamphlet whispers 'calm' and that's what you need. That's what you know you need, and your therapist is proud of you for choosing it.

For the first time, you start to feel a small bubble of warmth form in your chest - pride of your own creation, culled slowly but brighter for it.

 

Your roommate introduces himself as 'Shitty' and assigns himself as your best friend. You're grateful for it, grateful for him. He doesn't ask questions, doesn't know all the details, but he never offers you a drink or any of his seemingly endless pot stash. You get invited to parties but you never go, always politely turn people down on the excuse of studying, and he doesn't ask. Missing the hockey teams' 'Hazapalooza' isn't an accident and when Shitty comes back at four A.M. so drunk that he can't walk, you just help him into bed.

You stay up at night wondering how you got so lucky to be assigned Shitty Knight as a roommate.

 

Sophomore year, you both move into the Haus and it's like suddenly having a real family - a house full of boys who'll look out for each other, who'll protect each other to the ends of the Earth. You sit on the edges, try and stay out of the parties, but you watch fondly.

 

Eric Bittle shakes up your routine and it surprises you. He smiles at everyone and everything and seems like an endless ray of sunshine and unconditional love.

You feel yourself shrinking back in front of his light, being unintentionally sharp with him whenever he gets too close. It's been years but you aren't ready to risk it again - you aren't ready to let someone know everything, and you feel like he'd be able to get that close without you noticing. So you keep your defenses up at all times.

 

It only takes you a semester to recognize what you're feeling as a crush. Being in touch with your thoughts and feelings was Number One on 'things Jack Zimmermann needs to do to get better'. Just because you know what's going on in your head doesn't mean you have to do anything about it, though. So you don't. Not even when he comes out to the team, so you know he could potentially return your feelings.

It isn't worth the risk.

 

Shitty confronts you about it in the summer before Senior year and you admit that you might kind of like Bittle. Possibly.

He laughs so hard that he drops the phone.

"Bro," he says, still laughing. "Bro."

He hangs up the phone leaving you wondering what he exactly he meant by that.

 

You knew logically that Bitty would be in the room across from yours when you got back from summer break. But knowing that and seeing him there, tanned skin and sun-bleached hair, here two entirely different stories.

You spend a lot of time with him - with the whole team, in smaller groups, and one on one. You start to think maybe he likes you back but you convince yourself that it's just wishful thinking.

 

Kent shows up unannounced at the last party before winter break. It takes a while, but he corners you. He kisses you and you smell the alcohol on his breath and it's just like old times. He wants it to be like old times.

You wish it could be so easy.

When he leaves, you find yourself staring into Bitty's wide eyes. Kent walks away and Bitty starts to say something but you slam the door before he can get a word out.

 

It's the cookies that change it. That's when you know. But you can't do anything about it; you aren't ready to be the first out NHL player and you would never ask Bitty to compromise that for you.

 

Just because you know it's a bad idea doesn't mean that you stop trying to spend time alone with Bitty. He calms the spinning in your thoughts.

 

You corner him at your graduation, pull him aside to an empty hallway. He smiles and congratulates you before he sees the look on your face and asks you what's wrong.

You take a deep breath, and you tell him everything that he didn't already know. When he kisses you, standing on his tiptoes and straining his neck slightly, it startles you so much that it takes a second before you kiss back.

But when you do, you melt into it. You close your eyes and feel yourself smile, and then you start to laugh because he's smiling, too.

For the first time, your mind is silent.

 

 


End file.
